There’s a museum inside this library. Not a display case. A small museum, sitting in a building that’s also lending DVDs of films that were in cinemas last year, in a city named after Ransom E. Olds, who built cars.
One visitor called it one of the more interesting libraries and led with the vintage feel of the interior before mentioning a single book. That’s not how people usually describe a public library and it’s the reason this one is worth the trip.
A library with a museum tucked inside and a vintage interior is exactly my kind of odd. Most public buildings from the last twenty years look like they were designed to be forgotten, and Oldsmar kept some personality. I’d drive twenty minutes for that alone.
What is Oldsmar Public Library?
The city library at 400 St Petersburg Drive East in Oldsmar, Florida, at the top of the bay where Pinellas meets Hillsborough. The phone is 813-749-1178, which is a Tampa area code for a Pinellas city, and the site sits under myoldsmar.com. One hundred and fourteen Google reviews at four point five. It belongs to the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative, so the card works across the county and holds placed online can be collected here.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
The interior is the first thing people mention. Vintage in feel, which in a category of buildings that mostly went modern and grey over the last two decades makes this one memorable. The mini museum sits inside it.
The children’s area gets described as bright and inviting, filled with books and activities. There are plenty of public computers. The meeting rooms come up repeatedly as clean, well equipped and usable for group projects, study sessions or community events. That isn’t something most people expect from a small city library.
The DVD shelf
Oldsmar still gets new releases on DVD. That sounds like a footnote and it’s important. Physical media has been written off twice over, and a great many libraries stopped buying discs when the streaming services arrived. The households that never subscribed, or cannot, or don’t want another monthly bill, lost access to new films entirely.
A library that keeps buying new-release discs is making a deliberate decision about who its patrons are. It costs money and shelf space and it serves people who have no other route to the same films. That’s money well spent. Streaming was sold as progress, and for plenty of households it only meant another monthly bill or nothing at all. A library that keeps buying new discs is standing up for the people the streaming companies never cared about, and I wish more branches had the nerve.
One regular, comparing branches across the county, noted that some Pinellas libraries lend power tools, sockets and torque wrenches and that this one doesn’t. Check if a tool was the reason you were going. Clearwater Countryside is the branch for that.
Story time, and the sign language sessions
Streaming was sold as progress, and for plenty of households it only meant another monthly bill or nothing at all.
People refer to the children’s programming here by the names of the people who run it. That’s the surest sign a program is working. Parents write about story time by the librarian’s name, and about a separate session teaching sign language that reviewers describe as both fun and informative. Another staff member covers story time on rotation, and parents mention that staff member by name too. Sign language for young children is an unusual thing for a small library to put on. It serves deaf and hard-of-hearing families directly, and it happens to be excellent for hearing toddlers who understand more than they can yet say.
This is the program on the page that impresses me most. It serves families who get overlooked almost everywhere, and it hands hearing toddlers a way to talk before their mouths catch up. A small library didn’t have to take that on, and I respect that it did.
One parent described it simply as a calm and cosy library where you can spend good time with your child.
Who this library is for
Oldsmar sits at the top of the bay. That makes this the natural library for anybody in Oldsmar itself, East Lake, the northern edge of Safety Harbor, and the Hillsborough side of the county line. It’s a small building doing the small-town job well. A children’s program people turn up for by name, meeting rooms community groups can use, a museum that gives the place a character, and a media shelf that hasn’t given up on physical discs.
For a writer the meeting rooms are the useful part. A clean, well-equipped, bookable room in a public building is where a writing group meets, and it costs nothing. I’ve written about finding a writing group worth sitting in, and the rooms tend to be the limiting factor more often than the people.
I’d pick a free, clean room with a door over the back table of any cafe for a writing group. Groups fall apart when the venue is noisy or costs money every week, and a public room you can reliably book fixes both problems.
When is Oldsmar Public Library open?
Monday and Tuesday from nine in the morning until eight at night. Wednesday and Thursday nine until six. Friday and Saturday nine until five. Closed Sunday.
The nine o’clock opening six days a week is the strength here. Very few libraries in this county unlock before ten, so if you want a quiet hour before the day starts properly, this is one of the few options north of Seminole.
The nine o’clock start deserves more credit than it gets. The first quiet hour of the morning is the most valuable writing time most people have, and a ten o’clock opening simply gives it away. St Petersburg Drive East runs through the middle of Oldsmar. Parking is the library lot. From Clearwater it’s around twenty minutes, from Safety Harbor about ten.
The natural pairing is Sam’s Books in the Oldsmar Flea Market, which is a few minutes away and open Friday through Sunday, with children’s books at a dollar or two. Library in the morning, flea market booth after.
My take
Book a meeting room here if your writing group keeps falling apart. A free, clean room with a door beats the back table of any cafe, because noise and weekly costs are what kill groups. Early writers get the other gift. It opens at nine six days a week, and the first quiet hour of the day is the best writing time most people have. The sign language sessions for children impressed me most. A small library didn’t have to take that on.
Where it sits
Among the north county libraries, Oldsmar is the small one with the most character.
Palm Harbor is the large independent district library. Dunedin is the busy one with the longest hours. Tarpon Springs has the twenty-five cent books and the museum passes.
Oldsmar has the early opening, the museum, the DVDs and a children’s program where parents know the staff by name. For a city this size that’s far more than anyone has a right to expect, and I’d send anybody in north county here before I’d send them to a bigger building with less character.
